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Thanks for participating in the first ever drawing contest here on Parka Blogs. The response was better than I expected. There was a total of 46 participants and 57 entries. And thanks for all the messages sent.

In case you missed the contest (details), the theme is about animal(s) in a competitive sport environment.

The entries were fun and varied in style. Some were pretty thoughtful and detailed, created with lots of effort. Unfortunately, I can only choose one winner and the winner is...

Powree

Although I didn't state any criteria, this piece from Powree seems to have all the right elements with regards to the theme. I like the moment captured showing clearly the action, the expression on the puffin who's almost caught and the bulls colliding painfully. They even have uniforms and gear. Nice.

Congrats to Powree!

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Update: Voting has ended (on 10 May 2010, midnight GMT)

The second set of prize is for the winner with the most number of votes, or the most popular piece. In the case that both the winners are the same, I'll give the Set B prize to the second most popular (voted) illustration.

Everyone's allowed to vote. The voting box is just right below the last entry. You've got to sign in to vote and only 1 vote is counted.

Surprise, surprise. I've an additional prize for voters as well, it's a copy of Jose Lopez's 4:00 AM. Good luck!

Anyway, the reason why I had voting as well is because what I like may not be what the majority like.

Voting has ended (on 10 May 2010, midnight GMT)

The winner, by a very close margin of 1 vote, is ZinPH! Congrats!

And the winning voter is Alfonso Pardo Martinez!

The entries

These are the rest of the entries, in order of submission. Note the artist's name for your vote.

Larger versions of the images are available just by clicking on the images.

Wow, the standards were so high! I was expecting just quick sketches, but some people went all out, props to them. Game face on next time though. Well done everyone, so many amazing pieces, very hard to pick a favourite.

next time i would advise against voting competitions, when it comes to real prizes
lot's of time they are really popularity contests, who can ask enough friends who will get their asses in front of a computer and enter this site, signup and vote.
on one hand at least a few of them are bound to come back to the site, so as a way of advertising, it has it benefits, but i hardly believe it is a fair judging method.
my advice to you, that in future competition you either choose all the winners your self, or point impartial judges from people you know you can trust., and give a first and second prizes.

that what i think
but it was a splendid competition
with allot of splendid drawings
great job every one

Congratulations to Powree and ZinPh! (As well as Alfonso for the voter prize!)

I don't want to get involved in this, but I will have to agree with GAD's comment above. One person can try and vote for his/her own picture through different accounts. Anything is possible. So to make this totally fair, maybe you can try to expand the prize into winner prize, runner prize, and such. That'll be a great and challenging idea! Hope it's satisfactory.

Let's face it. Voting is predominantly biased today. The same can be said for many situations. In American Idol, the person who wins may not necessarily be the best. He may have got through rounds with the help of his large circle of friends who have money and religiously vote. Or he may also get through based on his looks.

Even in other voting systems ranging for competitions to politics, people get through with a number of other factors apart from the main voting point. Factors like charisma, looks, dressing, style and fan base (consisting of friends and strangers) all help to push a person into it. To give an example, some people may not have voted for Obama in the last American election race even though they love his policy reforms, but not the colour of his skin.

Do you think product companies win all their customers by their design alone? They design advertisements promising you a lifestyle, a luxury and many other intangible things attached to a product.

The voting system in this blog is such that you have to register before voting. If your friend is willing to go all the way to set up an account to vote for you, why not? And besides, if your friend is smart enough he may enter and decide to vote objectively when he realises he likes the other art better as compared to yours.

The whole voting system is no longer a completely objective process. As admirable as your honesty is, such a value would reflect well on yourself but may be overtaken in the a superficial world.

I do not think anyone who voted for themselves or got their friends to vote are wrong. They want to win this badly, and so they worked for it. They garnered their friends to vote for them, and if you want to win too, then you have to show it and work for it. You can't just sit on your butt and hope that people come to you. You have to go out there and win them over.

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